mikejs78
Premium Member
Thx! Now see there are some interesting cites! I'm too busy tonight to see those through in completion, the snipets look a bit different in their full scope (the 'construction' project requirement was bounded differently than other projects if I recall?).
But as to pointing to incompetence... we should also point out that the board hired in Prague to be independent assessors of their policies and processes too. And the head of finance, Susan Higginbotham, has also been trusted by not just Reedy Creek, but by the cities as well. And when you lookup names in the Procurement Office.. you find long histories there as well. These aren't rubes brought in by the new Governor lackeys.
So, is the problem
- Incompetence by many? Including long established RCID employees?
- collusion by many? both internal and external to the district?
- coercion of public employees and contractors by a tyrant administrator?
- or are interpretations here incomplete or inaccurate?
I certainly don't have enough concrete material yet to be pointing fingers claiming extreme violations of both ethics and state law as many have done. I wager the issue with exceptions in the procurement process is far more nuanced then is being lead to here.. and while I'm certainly not trying to claim a contract was granted totally independently of Gilzean... I also haven't seen a lock-tight argument to say they have violated the law in this matter or that their policies do... nor will I just assume since they are bad people that the details don't matter... that they are bad and that's all that matters.
The law allows for some crappy behavior. Is this just crappy behavior, or are they actually operating in a fashion in violation of the law? I'd like to understand that better than just "I can't trust the guy" arguments.
Setting aside for a moment the legal aspect of this - I think a case can be made that this is ethically questionable. We have two things here, one of which on its own could be more plausibly explained away, but both together lead to an appearance of cronyism at the very least.
* A no-bid contract being awarded
* That no-bid contract being awarded to an associate of Gleason / DeSantis.